Commemorated With Cigars

The Nicaraguan cigar maker Tabacarela Perdomo manufactures a cigar line named "COMPAY" to honor the Cuba's rich music history and the late Compay Segundo, the legendary musician (the Perdomo family, by the way, originates from Cuba). The "COMPAY" line has four cigars called... you guessed - Buena, Vista, Social, and Club (sounds familiar?).

Compay is a special blend of medium-bodied, vintage Nicaraguan tobaccos in a dark maduro cameron wrapper. They are medium bodied and produce a soft and extremely well balanced smoke. As an avid fan of the music group, I take of my hat to the person who decided to name them. They are available in four classic sizes: "Buena" (4.5 X 52 Robusto); "Vista" (6 X 50 Toro); "Social" (7 X 48 Churchill) and the "Club" (5.75 X 54 Torpedo).

You would think that the Cubans will be the ones to commemorate their beloved son with a high quality cigar, yet they did it with a machine made "Guantanamera Compay", a cigar that I don't believe Compay himself would have smoked. Nick Perdomo, on the other hand, gave Compay what he deserves - a line of excellent quality cigars and great names.

For his 95th birthday, Montecristo issued a special, limited edition of a 1000 Montecristo No. 3 cigars with a special band with Compay's picture. These cigars were not sold at stores, and were given as presents to all the participants in his birthday party at the hotel Nacional in Havana. Compay himself (of coarse...) received 156 of "his" cigars in a special humidor. The Compay cigars became collectibles even before anyone lighted the first one of them. And why Montecristo? Because Compay smoked their cigars almost exclusively. After all, he was one of their torcedores (cigar rollers) for 20 years...